


Flowerbed

by cirque



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Adultery, Child Abuse, F/M, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:57:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She likes to think she’d love him anyway, if it weren’t for their research.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowerbed

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt 'maelstrom' at tamingthemuse@lj.  
> Prequel to my other work 'Alchemy'.

She likes to think she’d love him anyway, if it weren’t for their research, or their marriage, or the Sherry-shaped bond between them. She likes to pretend they’d have hooked up anyway, bought a house somewhere by the beach, and lived a whole other life. Sometimes she likes to pretend they didn’t sleep together too early, didn’t end up conceiving a child despite the cocktail of illicit substances that kept them both high as kites.  
  
Sometimes she folds Sherry’s school uniform and pretends she’s still at school herself. God knows, she’s young enough for it. Everyone says she’s too young to have a twelve year old. She irons Sherry’s blouse into oblivion as she sways in the kitchen. Her stomach grows like she’s swallowed an army and she keeps it quiet with another cigarette. There’s an irony in there, but she can’t bring herself to see it.  
  
She plants begonias in the garden. “For luck,” she tells William as she lands a kiss on his cheek, and she reminds herself how much she likes the hot sun beating on her skin. They don’t go outside much, these days, underground laboratory and all. She remembers beach days, years ago, William in shorts and Sherry stuffing fistfuls of sand into her mouth. She’s shocked to remember that they had ever caught the sun.  
  
Wesker appears in her kitchen some nights like he isn’t the biggest bastard she’s ever known. He sets his sunglasses beside the microwave and makes her feel nervous just standing there in her nightgown and slippers. He doesn’t speak as he takes off his jacket, his shirt, his pants, and pins her to the bed with his preternatural hands, and she swears at him suddenly, _fuck you for doing this_ , but he doesn’t reply. He never replies. She wonders if he’d stop if she asked him to, and she feels sick to her stomach. How did it come to this?  
  
Her begonias die. She stabs them with a trowel as she pulls their rootless husks from the flowerbed. She thinks about fertilising them with the G virus, and then she sees a whole bed of flowers, Sherry’s head on their thin stalks, crying at her.  
  
“I don’t like needles mommy,” said Sherry, angry, after one session in the lab. Annette looked at her daughter. Annette hadn’t flinched at a needle in years; she sniffed and inhaled and smoked and injected until any sense of reason was flipped upside down. She patted Sherry’s hair fondly. “You’ll get used to them sweetie.”  
  
She bites down on the insides of Wesker’s elbows. He has a kid, somewhere; a kid and a woman who hates him almost as much as she does. He told her recently, right before he pulled off her underwear, like it was some playground taunt. She found herself gasping back tears at the thought of this whole other family that Wesker had ruined.  
  
William finds her in the garden, planting more flowers. “Wesker told me,” he says, “about you and him.” She doesn’t need to ask for more details. Wesker’s been threatening for years to tell William, like it’s the one piece of leverage he has over her. She nods to her flowers, can’t bring herself to look at him. Up is down and in is out; she can’t find the words to say it right.  
  
William turns to leave. “I already guessed it, anyway.”  
  
She wonders if it would make a difference if she said he’d forced her. She wonders if there’s even anything left of their marriage worth saving, or if she should walk away and hope William still cuts her in on G’s profits. She thinks of Lisa Trevor, chained and inhuman, and feels a pang of sadness for the first time in years.  
  
It’s September before he mentions it again. “I want you to leave.”  
  
She’s not sure she heard him right, so she puts down her coffee cup and stares at him. He’s been higher than normal lately, she’s sure he’s doubling up doses just to feel the effects. “What?”  
  
“You heard. It doesn’t have to be today, but soon.”  
  
She thinks of her lab work, of her magazine subscriptions, of her failing flowerbed and all the possessions they co-own. It takes her a while to think of their daughter. “What about Sherry?”  
  
“What about her?” Says William, unconcerned. “I hardly see why we need to discuss that. Sherry stays here, with me.”  
  
His tone tells her that she can’t argue with that. She hasn’t got the strength to attempt an argument. She wonders if it’s his daughter he’s worried about losing or his life’s work. She thinks about the antiviral strains, humming away in a draw in the lab, thinks about injecting Sherry in the middle of the night, packing a bag and running, south, north, anywhere.  
  
Annette knows she’s had plenty of chances to run over the years. Married or not, she’s stuck in this madness.


End file.
